The awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize to Shirin Ebadi, the Iranian judge, lawyer and political activist, was as inspired as it was unexpected. The

One should attemtp to elaborate the geneaology, not so much of the notion of modernity, but rather of modenity as a question for examination. —

In January 2003, I received a call from Dariush Zahedi, my old classmate at University of Southern California. Dariush’s phone call was prompted by a